


Impractical Results

by Bibliotecaria_D



Series: Footnotes: Sand Box [7]
Category: Transformers Generation One
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-22
Updated: 2012-01-22
Packaged: 2017-10-29 22:48:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/325030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bibliotecaria_D/pseuds/Bibliotecaria_D
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Come play in the sandbox.</i>  (Wheeljack is a Constructicon fetish.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Impractical Results

_Come play in the sandbox._ (Wheeljack is a Constructicon fetish.)

 **Title:** Impractical Results  
 **Warnings:** The stuff of fantasies sometimes includes explosions.  
 **Rating:** PG  
 **Continuity:** G1, _Footnotes_ AU  
 **Characters:** Swindle, Constructicons, Thundercracker  
 **Disclaimer:** The theatre doesn’t own the script or actors, nor does it make a profit from the play.  
 **Motivation (Prompt):** _Stormcloud GIF_

 

[* * * * *]

When the Constructicons moved like that, intent concentration written in vivid letters across their faces and violence ready to be written by their twitching hands, a wise Decepticon tyrant sent them far, far away. As in, ‘back to Earth while he stayed on Cybertron’ far away. “Get out of my sight!” was Megatron-speak for, “Will you just **go away?** Primus, you’re freaking me out.”

The Decepticons knew this because Starscream handily translated for them. Plus, they were all thinking it, too.

The combiner team descended on Shockwave’s damaged space bridge with the kind of grim determination that rebuilt cities or stopped a marauding swarm of alien sand1. The Autobot scientists scurried out their way and watched from a distance, not having a clue what was going on. They lacked a translator for what was going on, as Starscream wasn’t one for helping Autobots with Megatron’s linguistic oddities or explaining the Constructicons’ weird fixations. All tentative queries and offers to help were soundly ignored. The Constructicons had better things to do than tolerate soft little Autobots any longer. Invasion of the killer sand, yes yes, moving on.

More important things were happening back on Earth. The Constructicons knew it. Megatron had gone so far as to ban them from communicating with Swindle when the warlord found out what half his build team was distracted with, but not before they’d found out that the experiment was a go. Swindle had gotten Blast Off to slip them an additional tidbit of teasing information after that: Thundercracker was being prepped for launch.

Prepped. As in, the control flight had been scheduled and gone smoothly. All the pre-flight maintenance had been double-checked and given a green light. The next step would be the actual test flight. The boosters would be installed and checklisted for flight. The clever black hands that had built them would delve deep into the Seeker’s thrusters and make connections with meticulous attention paid to subject and device alike.

Swindle had promised to report it in ever delicious detail.

Mixmaster’s engine hadn’t slowed since. Neither had Hook’s, much to his embarrassment. Scavenger walked into a wall. Bonecrusher went straight through it and fell off the building. Scrapper made a basic calculation error in the blueprint design for the weapon the scientists had manufactured to defend Cybertron. Long Haul ran over one of the Aerialbots2.

The idea of Wheeljack wrist-deep in something experimental and possibly explosive had the Constructicons a bit…excited.

So they piled into the space bridge with all the dignity they had left, and it really didn’t survive the trip back to Earth. But, meh. Dignity, shmignity.

Someone had kindly left a holovid sitting outside the Earth exit of the space bridge. Scrapper caused a pile-up when he spotted it, freezing where he stood. He only stumbled aside when Bonecrusher strong-armed him out of the way. That just cleared the view for the other five Constructicons, who blinked in fascinated unison as the holovid cycled through the very short, very _dramatic_ video.

 _BOOM **Crash** _ Flash _Crackle!_

“Ooooooh,” they breathed.

“Swindle,” Scrapper barked into the Earth comm. network. “Where?”

“At the base,” the Combaticon responded immediately.

“Is Thundercracker there?”

“What’s left of him.” Swindle’s smile could almost be seen. “He’s not too bad off. Wheeljack spent **hours** putting him back together.”

Scavenger made a soft sound resembling a moan somewhere behind him, but frankly, most of Scrapper’s processing power had just been diverted to imagining that. Repair work. Hours of repairwork by a mad inventor who could engineer that kind of explosion. Their optics went right back to that holovid as it cycled again. Hours. _Guh._

Hook dropped into the network with a graceless clunk before Scrapper got back up to speed. “Swindle.”

“Yeah?”

“ **Details.** ”

“Sure. Do you want me to start with how the experiment went, how many tools the Autobot brought with him to check Thundercracker’s systems pre-flight, or the precise time it took him to calibrate the fuel injectors on the boosters? I timed him to a fraction of a second for you if you’re interested.”

“…muh.”

On the other end of the comm. line, Swindle listened to the strangled noise, threw his head back, and laughed his aft off. Thundercracker lit one optic dimly, moodily shoved the Combaticon’s feet off his repair berth, and heaved over to lay on his other side. It only made Swindle laugh harder.

And on the other side of the planet in another faction altogether, Wheeljack happily went over the results of his experiment. He absently wondered if anyone would be interested in double-checking his work.

 

[* * * * *]  
 **Footnotes**  
[* * * * *]

 

1Seriously. _Sand_. Because at least once or twice during the worst of the fighting, every single one of the flyers — who, for the most part, lacked the code to process the technical jargon that explained things better -- had stopped and seriously reevaluated the situation. Giant slagging war machine robots were losing a planetary battle to invading parasitic _sand_. Ratchet had made the Aerialbots all go have a lie-down. Starscream had picked a fight with Megatron just to give the Decepticons some perspective on things. Sand? It’d been too much.

2No, really, it’d actually been an accident. He even apologized. Fireflight had been so taken aback by that he didn’t tell the other Autobots how he got tire tracks on his face.


End file.
